Hard disagree with the bottom two, but a santoku, a regular-ass chef’s knife (Japanese, or German when a Japanese one’s unavailable), and a super sharp paring knife do me just fine. Cooked professionally for 2 decades with just those.
A filet knife and a cleaver I used very rarely, but were something the restaurants always had kicking around, because no one Smeagols one of those like we do our preciouses.
I dont quite remember exactly but Gordon always uses a big one, a pairing knife and a flexible one for fish and filet. ( ah I found something, different from memory but what does that count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-av6cz9upO0 he uses: carving, chopping and a large serated knife)
Metal is just metal if its shaped right and sharpened it will do its job. The only reason for a modern person to get those expensive katakana folded steel knives is to look cool.
The only reason the tradition even exists in the first place is that the ore and smelting techniques of the japanese islands made them try to purify the metal through repeated folding and heating.
Meanwhile in european Forgecraft the temperatures got higher so that even low-quality ore could be fully smelted, drastically improving metal quality, allowing for faster forging.
The faster forging has another benefit, the hot metal is in contact with air for a shorter time, so it oxidizes less and looses less carbon, and it needs to spend less time being re-heated in the forge (potentially re-introducin unwanted carbon), both contribute to the final steel being of a better quality. Because its just easier to get the carbon distribution right.
Hard, nearly brittle high-carbon steel on the cutting edge(s), low carbon, flexible steel on the spine of the sword/knife. Where is that with folded steel? That nearly impossible to do! While you could just put two blocks of the right steels together and hammer into shape and then sharpen.
So many people do these bogus “experiences” with these beautiful japanese knive sets, where the only feature for cooking is that it has been adequately sharpened.
A good chef need only 3 knives. ~ Gordon Ramsey
A knife is only a sharp, flat piece of metal. ~ me
You dont need knive-sets, no need for japanese foulded metal. ~ Huggbees
Just sharpen your knife and get rid of it if it aint good. ~ me
Hard disagree with the bottom two, but a santoku, a regular-ass chef’s knife (Japanese, or German when a Japanese one’s unavailable), and a super sharp paring knife do me just fine. Cooked professionally for 2 decades with just those.
A filet knife and a cleaver I used very rarely, but were something the restaurants always had kicking around, because no one Smeagols one of those like we do our preciouses.
Edit: did GR say which 3 he meant?
I dont quite remember exactly but Gordon always uses a big one, a pairing knife and a flexible one for fish and filet. ( ah I found something, different from memory but what does that count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-av6cz9upO0 he uses: carving, chopping and a large serated knife)
Metal is just metal if its shaped right and sharpened it will do its job. The only reason for a modern person to get those expensive katakana folded steel knives is to look cool.
The only reason the tradition even exists in the first place is that the ore and smelting techniques of the japanese islands made them try to purify the metal through repeated folding and heating.
Meanwhile in european Forgecraft the temperatures got higher so that even low-quality ore could be fully smelted, drastically improving metal quality, allowing for faster forging.
The faster forging has another benefit, the hot metal is in contact with air for a shorter time, so it oxidizes less and looses less carbon, and it needs to spend less time being re-heated in the forge (potentially re-introducin unwanted carbon), both contribute to the final steel being of a better quality. Because its just easier to get the carbon distribution right.
Hard, nearly brittle high-carbon steel on the cutting edge(s), low carbon, flexible steel on the spine of the sword/knife. Where is that with folded steel? That nearly impossible to do! While you could just put two blocks of the right steels together and hammer into shape and then sharpen.
So many people do these bogus “experiences” with these beautiful japanese knive sets, where the only feature for cooking is that it has been adequately sharpened.